Tuesday, April 29, 2014

AMERICAN NIGHTMARE: $6.30 BILL COSTS WOMEN HER HOUSE

O the American Dream!The story of an American women who lost her $280,000 house at a tax auction because she had an outstanding school tax bill for $6.30 in unpaid interest is disparaging!Eileen Battisti’s husband passed away in 2004. Apparently he was the person in the relationship that looked after bills like property taxes and school taxes. She fell behind on her taxes but thought she had cleared up the mess which grew to a whopping $235!

In 2011, her property was put up for sale. The letter of the law was applied. The new owner picked up her house for just $116,000 at a tax upset sale/auction. Most of that money will go to her after Beaver County, Pennsylvania gets its interest and fees.

After a legal battle, a Pennsylvania judge has ruled that the county was within it's rights and Battisti given proper notice before her home was sold at auction. This latest decision comes after a higher court overturned the sale and ordered an evidentiary hearing in April.She is is still living in the home and plans to mount an appeal to the Commonwealth Court.

Even sadder is the fact that Battisti is not alone. Archaic lending laws mixed with municipalities teetering on bankruptcy have resulted in other examples of people loosing their homes. A Rhode Island woman got kicked out of her house two weeks before Christmas because of a $474 sewer bill and a Baltimore woman, for example, lost her home over a $362 unpaid water.

The American dream has become an American farce.

I say it is a good thing we rejected economic union with the Americans.